


Here You'll Always Stay

by PSIDontKnow



Series: Green Lilies, Blue Roses [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Allagan Bullshit, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Plays out between 1.0 and 2.0, Pre - Canon, playing fast and loose with Canon to suit my own needs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:08:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24749635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PSIDontKnow/pseuds/PSIDontKnow
Summary: Before The Warriors of Light, before Garlemald, before any who live nowthere was Allag and her weapons
Series: Green Lilies, Blue Roses [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774330
Kudos: 4





	Here You'll Always Stay

She wakes with the fall of Dalamud. She doesn't know that's what's awoken her at first, mind muddled as she pulls herself from the dirt and rubble around her. Her mind echoes as her skin buzzes from the aether around her, the source south of her. She heads north, away from it, stumbling over uneven ground and discarded bits and bobs. She doesn't think of the bodies beneath her clawed toes, of the bareness of herself, she doesn't think of the rocks around her, the budding crystals she crushes as she walks. Her mind is clear of all except for a buzzing need to get away from something that makes the scales on her body itch. She trips and stumbles across stone and scorched earth, across bones and grass, until she cannot anymore, knees giving out from under her, sending her to the ground. It’s only then that she looks around, lost and wide eyed at the unfamiliar world around her. She doesn’t know the grass under her, the snow that falls, she doesn’t know of this blue gray sky above her or why the wind whistles pasts her horns.

This is not where she had been before, a place of green and steel, glowing lines and pain, and she doesn’t know if she likes this new or not. She digs her clawed fingers into the ground, marveling at that texture, curling her fingers further and ripping out the grass. Smooth and scratchy at the same time, a strange feeling in a strange land, and she curiously puts it in her mouth before spitting it out. Different from her nutrition packs in a foul way. Satisfied with her exploration of the ground under her, she tries to push herself to her feet, failing and trying again, and yet a third time when that fails. Her hands are shaking along with her legs now, tears filling up her eyes, and she wonders if she’d broken her body somehow, if they’d scrapped her and she’d somehow woken up broken.

“Hey! Ya need some help?” The voice drags her out of her thoughts, head whipping up and around until she sees the source. It’s a person, a real one she thinks, sitting in the front of a cart with some yellow thing tethered in front. He takes a moment, looking at her, before he leaps from his cart and pulls a blanket from the back, walking towards her briskly. The fabric whips out and she flinches for a moment until it’s pulled around her shoulders and the small man is crouching in front of her.

“Ya look pretty beat up. Gon’ catch your death of cold out here in naught but your skin.” He grins broadly, and she tries to return it, tears still dripping down her face and into the tangled strands of her hair. 

“Why’re ya out here? Ain’t nothin for malms in any direction.” She shakes her head in answer, nearly knocking the man over with her horns if he hadn’t leaned back at the correct moment. He stares at her for a moment, an emotion she can't name in his hooded brown eyes, before standing and putting a hand on her shoulder 

"Think you can get up enough to get over to the cart? Be easy enough to get you someplace else like that, I reckon." She tries to push herself to her feet again, stumbling but not falling when he tucks his shoulder under hers, grunting with the pressure and helping her to the cart, helping her step up into the back amongst canvas wrapped packs. He helps her up into the back and then takes one of her feet in hand, tutting at the bottom.

“You’ve torn yourself up good here, sweetheart. Just sit back here and take it easy while I find somethin’ to wrap you up with.” He drops her foot, walking around to the front and she picks up her own foot to see how bad it is. There’s blister, welts, blood welling from scratches and cuts, the scales lining the back and top of her foot unkempt, some torn out, and she wonders for a moment how she hadn’t felt it. She hadn’t felt anything for a while, she realizes, except for the need to get away from that horrid buzzing feeling that made her skin crawl. She can still feel it now, but it’s less overbearing, enough that she can now feel the ache in her legs, the emptiness of her stomach. Lost in thoughts, she startles when the man comes back, a few rags and a pouch in hand.

“I ain’t a conjurer, but this’ll do you some good now.” He explains, taking the foot she’s not holding and tilting the pouch, water pouring out and rinsing out her wounds before he ties it up, apologizing softly when she hisses. He repeats this with her other foot, tying it up as well before instructing her to scoot back in the cart. He eyes her tail when it shifts out from under the blanket, the tip of it swinging back and forth like a metronome before shrugging and looking back at her.

“Gonna guess you ain't got a home if you’re wanderin’ ‘round Coerthas without a thread on?” She thinks for a second, of what she knows of the word Home and where she had come from and shakes her head. It wasn’t a home, and even if it was, she doesn’t know how to get back.

“Can you talk?” She opens and closes her mouth a few times, only making a pathetic squeak before she shudders and shakes her head.

“Damn, ya got a name at least?” That one gives her pause. A name, a name, a name. She doesn’t have one like what he means, most assuredly, but she tilts her head to the side, tapping a black taloned finger to the script there. He leans up and over to see it, so much smaller than the bulk of her, and frowns.

“FM-RA-2811… That’s - Like you’re machinery.” He straightens up, still frowning, and she pulls the blanket closer around her shoulders, ducking her head. She’s expecting a reprimand, to be told that she had been meant to be scrapped. All she receives though, is a hand on her hand, patting down the matted strands. This is a gesture she doesn’t know, and she tilts her head up. He still looks upset, but he smiles when he notices her looking, and she does her best to return the gesture.

“How ‘bout Ephemera for a name? Or just Ephi for short.” She blinks at him a few times before realizing he’s asking  _ her opinion.  _ She bites her lip, thinking, mouthing the name to see how it feels in her mouth, the way the shapes roll around her molars, before nodding. The man grins brighter, moving his hand to pat at her shoulder.

“Right then, Ephi, let’s get on the road, ain’t no sense hangin’ around when a Coerthan snow decides to stick around.” She doesn’t know what a Coerthan is, but she does know snow and the cold way it would bite into her, and agrees with a fast nod of her head.

* * *

The man introduces himself at some point, a name that she can’t remember five minutes later, too busy mouthing her own name until he knocks on the wood separating the bench of the wagon from where she sits, huddled in a corner.

“How ‘bout this, I got some questions, but you can’t speak, right? So knock like that to answer, one for yes, two for no, three for if you don’t know.” She hums, deep in her chest before knocking once on the partition, and the man laughs.

“Catch on quick, okay but first, a different way. Knock once for if you’re a boy, twice if you’re a girl. Ain’t ever seen anyone like you ‘round before and I don’t wanna assume that you’re like a Hyur and got bits like I do.” She thinks for a moment, nodding though he can’t see it, and gently knocking twice.

“Good girl! Now, do you know which way you came from?”  _ No. _

“Damn, how about  _ where  _ you come from?”  _ No. _

“Really? How’s that… Okay then, can you write?”  _ Yes. _

“That’s good at least, good thing I can read, eh?”  _ Yes. _

“Haha, ya didn’t have to answer that one, girlie...”

They go on like that for a long while, the man asking questions that Ephi does her best to answer, though she’s beginning to regret answering truthfully to so many. She doesn’t know a lot, and shame and fear curl low into her gut.

“You’ve been pretty sheltered, my dear, no wonder you ran away.”  _ No.  _ He hums, turning to face her, one hand still holding onto the large bird’s reins, and gives her a strange look.

“You… didn’t run away? How’d you end up here then?” She knocks three times on the partition, because she doesn’t know, other than the possibility she’d been scrapped like so many other prototypes before her. He gives her another look, hazel eyes searching her face for something she doesn’t know, before nodding.

“Alright then.” He turns back around, taking the bird’s reins again before speaking. “Why don’t you lie down and try and get some sleep? Ya look pretty tired and home’s a ways away.” She watches the back of his head, the dark of his hair and the play of cloud light over it, and knocks once on the partition before shuffling around, finding another blanket to flop on top of her face to block out the light as she lays on her back. The wood isn’t comfortable, the cart shakes over every little pebble, and the bird smell awful, but still… She feels safe.

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S EPHI
> 
> I doubt many will read this, so if you do, thanks!! I have a lot of feelings about Allag and their implications, but also, isn't it fun that the Ixal are canonically Allagan experiments they let loose? Makes you wonder how many of those clones, automatons, and enemies you fight have free will.
> 
> PS Ephi's friend will gain a name later, and it will be explained better why he doesn't have one now. Just.. Later...


End file.
